


things he liked

by softsun



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Artist Iwaizumi, Getting Together, Jealousy, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 02:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8826130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softsun/pseuds/softsun
Summary: "Am I your muse?""My what now?"“Your muse,” said Oikawa, speaking just loudly enough that it would carry over the few feet between them, as if it would keep his face more still. “Do you draw anyone else this much?"





	

He liked to paint Oikawa most.

In a t-shirt and undone hair, sitting on the kitchen counter. Squinting at a textbook with his pencil between his teeth. Eyes closed, mouth open, fallen asleep against the windowpane of a subway car.

“Real artists pay their models,” Oikawa would say. “And you drew my hair too messy.” But he always stilled compliantly whenever Hajime opened his sketchbook.

Hajime used to wonder why Oikawa sat for him. So patiently, too. As if he wasn’t the kind of person who got bored doing dishes and left them soaped up in the sink, who paced the perimeter of his room when brushing his teeth and then paced the perimeter of Hajime’s too.

Probably it was just his vanity. Hajime didn’t think too much about it anymore. He knew better than to question a good thing.

So he painted Oikawa of all people, Oikawa his high school volleyball captain and current roommate and, well, best friend. Was it weird?

Makki thought so. He came over one day in the rain and said, “Wow, sure is pouring out there,” and then, “Who did that erotic painting of Oikawa hanging up on the wall?"

“It’s not erotic,” said Hajime, horrified beyond belief. He stalked over and snatched it down.

“It kind of is,” said Makki, taking off his raincoat and shaking himself, dog-like. “I mean, it’s a good painting. You’re good. But look.” He pointed a finger at the canvas. “The line of his throat? It’s too deliberate, the way the light hits it. And his eyes, so inviting. Urgh.” He shuddered.

Hajime was flushed and he knew it. Angry too, but he didn’t want to let that on.

“‘The line of his throat?’” he echoed. “Who got you talking like that, Makki?"

Makki fell for the misdirection. “Ryo has me taking this hippie art history class with her,” he said, running his hand through his damp hair so it stuck up in the back. “Don’t give me shit for it, okay? You’d get it if you had a girlfriend too."

Hajime supposed he might. He wouldn’t know.

Makki hung up his raincoat and went to raid the kitchen. Hajime stayed behind in the living room. Water had gotten onto the painting, was seeping into the canvas. He flicked it off. It wasn’t an erotic painting. Oikawa was sitting at the dining table, contemplating a bowl of soup, fully clothed. He’d been sick that day.

What was so wrong with it? He was leaning back, sure, but Hajime couldn’t help it if he chose to tilt his head like that, or if he lowered his eyelids so much. He just painted what he saw.

After Makki left, he checked the parking lot to make sure Oikawa wasn’t back from practice yet, and when he wasn’t, he surveyed all the paintings that had accumulated like dust around their apartment. A few littered the ground of his bedroom. A short stack of them occupied the bottom shelf of the bookcase, right next to Oikawa’s secondhand medical texts. More were lining the drawers of Hajime’s desk. When he ran his hand along the top of the refrigerator he found six or so sketches he had done, but never painted.

He gathered most of them as he went, deposited them into an empty shoebox, and put that into the closet. The only ones he left were a few that had been tacked up above his desk, because he didn’t want Oikawa to notice and ask.

It was enough, really.

“Am I your muse?” Oikawa once had said jokingly to him, on a breezy afternoon at the park when Hajime had broken out his paints. He hadn’t been able to help it. Something about the light, and the emerald green in Oikawa’s sweater.

“My what now?"

“Your muse,” said Oikawa, speaking just loudly enough that it would carry over the few feet between them, as if it would keep his face more still. “Do you draw anyone else this much?"

“Stop talking,” Hajime said. “I’m trying to get your expression.”

“Iwa-chan, if you draw someone else more than me, I’ll feel cheated on."

“I never said this was an exclusive thing.”

Oikawa adjusted his shoulders slightly and Hajime scowled.

“Exclusive,” Oikawa mouthed.

“What was that?"

“Nothing,” said Oikawa.

“Then keep your mouth shut.” His green was too warm. He added a touch more ultramarine blue.

Greens were hard to get right just because he liked them. Sometimes he mixed a shade that was a little off, but got so caught up in the color that he couldn't bear to touch it again. His greens were rarely accurate.

“Exclusive,” Oikawa said again, louder. “That’s relationship talk, you know."

Hajime’s hand slipped and he trailed a strand of paint past the sweater’s hem. “What the hell, Oikawa?"

Oikawa was laughing. “I’m just messing with you,” he said. “Too easy."

It was lucky that the mark was hanging, convincingly, like an errant string off the sweater.

Oikawa sighed at his silence. “Iwa-chan, you would be heartbroken if I ever left you alone."

“Heartbroken,” Hajime repeated slowly. He picked up some lighter green with the point of his brush and traced a zig-zag fold in the fabric where it gathered. “That’s relationship talk, you know."

“You can’t embarrass me the same way,” Oikawa pointed out. “I’m not a Victorian-level prude, unlike some people I know."

One of these days Hajime was going to outthink Oikawa, and then he was going to make him uncomfortable too. Scandalize him, even. They would see how it was when the tables turned.

“Pull your knee back up a bit,” Hajime instructed. “And don’t stare at me while I paint. How many times have I told you?"

“You look at me."

“That’s because I have to, dumbass."

“Would you look at me if you didn’t have to paint?"

Hajime turned the question over in his head. It sounded like another trap to embarrass him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?"

“Whatever you want it to."

This time when his hand slipped he wasn’t so fortunate. Wrong place, wrong angle. Oikawa hadn’t stopped staring at him, either.

Hajime exhaled and put the brush down. “Let’s just go home, Oikawa."

“That was quick,” said Oikawa, standing up and brushing grass from the seat of his pants. He crossed the distance between them in two strides, hand extended. “Can I see?"

“When we get home. I have to finish some parts."

Oikawa forgot about it, which Hajime was grateful for. The painting hadn’t turned out right. Too much detail in the sweater, none in Oikawa's face.

Hajime hadn’t liked the look in it that afternoon, distorted by white patches of sun coming through the leaves, calculating. He only painted things he liked.

  
  


•

  
  


What he liked were people. Faces. Jaws, and throats, all the delicate lines of them. They were almost intimate to sketch out, even more so to paint, to tuck shadows in the hollows and dab light on the high points. If anyone could read his mind he might worry they'd call it fetishistic. But that sounded like something out of one of Oikawa’s sci-fi books.

Didn’t every artist think something the same anyway? His friend Hirano from Intro to Painting liked hands. He had sketched Hajime’s once during lecture.

"Why are you in Intro?" Hirano had asked, sometime in the second or third week of the semester. They hadn’t known each other well then, but Hirano thought highly of him. Had ever since he’d seen Hajime’s still-life assignment. “You seem like you know too much for this."

"I wanted to go back to the basics," Hajime had said, “and make sure I got everything down. Never took a formal class until now."

So the class wasn’t hard. But it was different. Different relearning all the techniques and theories he’d blundered through on his own before.

These days he felt he had a lot to learn.

On Sunday evening he convinced Hirano to sit on the patio outside the fine arts building with him and paint the view overlooking campus. It was cold, but the sun was setting and the remaining leaves on the trees were glowing orange at the edges, as if they had caught on fire.

“You usually do this?” asked Hirano after a few minutes.

“What, paint?"

“Paint outside of class."

“Oh.” Hajime shrugged as he lined the background with the spindly trunks of the trees in the distance. "I guess."

“Whoa, you have time for that? What do you paint?"

“Whatever I see,” said Hajime.

Hirano was absorbed for a moment in mixing a shade of orange.

“I barely have time to take this class, let alone paint outside of it,” he confessed. “I wish I had your dedication."

Hajime didn’t exactly have the time either, but it wasn’t dedication that made him do it regardless. It was more that he felt compelled to paint.

 _Compelled to paint_ , how pretentious. If he kept taking these classes he’d graduate a tortured artist.

“Iwaizumi? I think that was your phone."

“It’s fine,” said Hajime. “Let’s finish the paintings first."

“Okay. How did you get your orange so bright? Mine looks too muddy."

Hajime helped him mix a new orange with fewer colors, and then watched as he delicately filled in his leaves.

Hirano’s style was all thin lines and precision, much softer and cleaner than Hajime’s. Hajime liked light, and color, and a lot of it. His professor had written in his midterm portfolio that he seemed to _prefer bold strokes that evoke the shape more than they delineate it._ Hirano said that it was probably a compliment, but Hajime wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t really like landscapes,” Hirano said. “I like drawing people. You know? I think I might take figure drawing next year."

“Didn’t you just say you were short on time?"

“Oh, yeah." Hirano made a face, ran a hand through his dyed reddish hair and got paint in it. "But you like drawing people too, right?"

“Sure."

“So why don’t you take it?"

Hajime finished with the tree trunks and started on his own leaves. “I don’t know,” he said. “I feel like I should stop spending so much time on painting. Maybe focus on my major more."

“You’ll get bored in all engineering classes,” said Hirano. “Come on, let’s take it together."

“Take what together?"

Hirano looked up. Hajime jolted but fought down the reflex to do the same.

“Hello, Iwa-chan,” said Oikawa’s voice, as a shadow crossed over Hajime's sketchpad. “Thought you might be here. Who’s your friend?"

“How did you find me."

“You’re always around here. And I texted you I was coming, so I don’t know why you’re surprised."

Hirano said, “Hi, I’m Hirano."

"Oh.” The shadow turned away. “From the painting class? Nice to meet you. Oikawa."

Hajime continued to fill in leaves, scowling.

“So what are you two taking together?"

“Well,” said Hirano, “I want to take figure drawing. But Iwaizumi doesn't know yet."

“He can be such a drag about things, can’t he."

“Whenever you two are done,” Hajime interrupted. “Oikawa, we’re trying to paint here."

“I can model for you right now,” Oikawa said to Hirano, as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “I do it for Iwaizumi all the time."

Hajime finally looked up, ready to protest.

“Really?” Hirano brightened. “You would?"

“Why not? I don’t have class till four.” Oikawa shrugged off his jacket and walked over to the low stone wall enclosing the patio. “But no figure drawing here, sorry. I don’t do public nudity.” He sat down and pulled one leg up against his chest, resting his arm on his knee.

“Put your jacket back on, it’s too cold,” Hajime told him.

Hirano was already flipping to a new page in his sketchbook. “This is great,” he said. “No one ever models for me."

“That’s a shame,” said Oikawa. He had settled into the pose, was looking peaceably at a spot somewhere over their heads in the distance. It made Hajime want to look too. “Next time, just hang around Iwaizumi. He’s always painting me."

“No I’m not,” said Hajime automatically.

“Yes he is."

Hirano only smiled. He picked up a pencil and studied Oikawa with a critical eye.

Oikawa was quiet for an entire fifteen minutes while Hajime worked on his landscape and Hirano sketched.

In the sixteenth minute he said, "Hirano, how's the drawing going?"

"Don't distract him," Hajime said, but he himself couldn't help looking over Hirano's shoulder at his sketchpad.

"Anything that anyone draws of me is bound to be a masterpiece," Oikawa said placidly.

Maybe there was some truth to that, because the drawing was good, even as a sketch. Better than most of what he had seen from Hirano during class. Oikawa rendered in his style was slight, almost pretty. His clothes hung off him neatly. Hirano had a way with clothes.

"He looks too delicate," Hajime blurted.

"Now who's distracting him?" said Oikawa.

Hirano paused and lifted his pencil from the page. It was sharpened to a fine point the way he liked, so he could keep his linework spare. Their professor would never write that his strokes _evoked the shape more than they delineated it._ "Yeah?" he said. "Huh, you're right. I can’t ever help that with faces. Everyone looks dainty the way I draw them, even the guys."

The Oikawa on the page looked like a fairy, like a prince. Hajime's hands were itching to reach over and fix it, or smudge it all, or something. "Well, shouldn't you be trying for realism?" he said. "That's what you'll have to do in figure drawing anyway."

"True," admitted Hirano, tilting his head to observe his own work. "I need to practice—"

"And his expression, he doesn't look like that. Why's his mouth kind of open? Or his eyes, they're too—he looks too young."

"Iwa-chan," said Oikawa slowly. "Is everything okay?"

Hajime did not know when his stomach had gone sour. He stood up abruptly. “Sorry," he said, “sorry." He turned to gather his belongings and knocked a few tubes of paint to the ground. “Damn."

Hirano laughed, nervous. He was sensitive to criticism, Hajime knew from the way he sat over his canvas when the professor walked by, half-shielding it with his body. "It's okay, Iwaizumi," he said. "I needed to hear it. You're a much better artist than me."

"No," said Hajime, crouched to the floor now, gathering paints as if he were in a hurry. He wasn't in a hurry. He forced himself to slow down. "I'm not. And the drawing's good."

"But you just said—"

"You guys keep going," said Hajime. "I've got to get to class. I'll see you later." He shoved the last of the paints in his case and stood up, clutching his sketchbook shut.

He'd forgotten about his own painting in it, still wet. Now it would be ruined.

"Wait up," called Oikawa as Hajime turned and took the patio steps down to the street two at a time.

Oikawa caught up with him half a block away by the chemistry building. He slowed from his light jog and matched his pace to Hajime's.

"Iwa-chan, don't walk so fast."

"You should go back," Hajime said. "Hirano's always wanted people to model for him."

“I don’t have to,” said Oikawa neutrally.

There was something funny about his wording there. Hajime couldn’t put his finger on it. “I really do have class,” he said. “So you can stop following me."

To his surprise Oikawa replied, “Okay.” He slowed until Hajime outpaced him and was walking alone down the sidewalk.

“I’ll make dinner tonight,” Oikawa yelled at his back.

Hajime raised a hand in acknowledgement and kept walking. It sounded like a smile in Oikawa’s voice, but that couldn’t be right; he always dragged his feet about making dinner.

Well, Oikawa did and said strange things every day. You couldn’t get caught up in every single one. Most of them, anyway, were meaningless, inexplicable, and looking for an answer only proved that you didn’t know Oikawa at all.

  
  


•

  
  


Near the end of the semester, amidst exams and papers and figuring out what classes he had to take next, the only easy task was sorting out his living arrangements for the next year.

Freshman year, it had been a given that he and Oikawa would live together. Before this year, he hadn’t been so sure, had wondered if maybe Oikawa had found someone else, someone on the volleyball team or in their hall. But now for their junior year it felt obvious again. They had lived together for so long that Hajime couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else.

“You’re not sick of me yet?” Oikawa joked at breakfast, the day after they had signed the lease.

“Don’t test me,” said Hajime, but they both knew that there had been no question about it. They would probably live together senior year, too.

Oikawa leaned back in his chair and licked jam off the flat of the knife. Hajime flinched. “I’ve got to say I’ll miss our bachelor pad. Can’t believe they increased the rent that much. I think my bedroom in the new apartment is smaller, too."

“Ugh, don’t call it the bachelor pad."

“Well that’s what it is. We’re bachelors."

So they were. But Hajime didn’t think of their apartment as a stereotypical bachelor pad. It was clean, for one, and not too cheap or juvenile or macho or whatever it was that made bachelor pads bachelor pads. No video games lying around, no fancy underused workout equipment tucked away in closets.

Makki had a true bachelor pad now. His girlfriend had broken up with him at the end of March.

Hajime had visited a week after the break-up. He found Makki cocooned in a blanket on the floor of his room, an empty bag of chips next of him, playing Bioshock without the slightest hint of an expression on his face.

“Makki,” he said. “It’s been a week."

Makki mashed some buttons on the controller.

"Hey. I've seen fish at the market with more life in their eyes."

No response.

Hajime gingerly removed the chip bag and sat in its place next to Makki. “You’ve gotta get out of here at some point. At least go to class or something."

Lights were flickering eerily on the screen as Makki maneuvered his character’s way up a flight of stairs. Hajime waited uneasily, either for Makki to speak or for something to jump out at them. But when he chanced a look over, Makki’s eyes were brimming.

 _Oh hell no_ , thought Hajime.

“Uh,” he said in alarm, “please don’t…"

What was he supposed to do? This wasn’t like dealing with Oikawa crying. Oikawa cried storms, a little like people did in the movies, but he got very silent, so all Hajime had to do was sit next to him and let him rest his head on his shoulder. This was Makki though. Hajime had only seen him cry once before, when they had lost to Karasuno their third year of high school, and then it hadn't been his responsibility to console him alone.

Makki sniffled willfully. To his credit he was trying very hard to hold it in. “You wouldn’t get it,” he said. “You’ve never had a girlfriend."

He was right as always. Hajime couldn’t argue with that.

“I know,” he said, “I know. Sorry."

Makki put down the controller.

“I miss her,” he said.

“Yeah."

Was this the part where Makki put his head on Hajime’s shoulder?

“You wouldn’t get it,” Makki repeated, and Hajime looked straight ahead at the wall in front of them because he was definitely crying now. Then Makki laughed in a choked sort of way. “You and your muse, right? Always going to be together."

“My what?”

Makki looked at him glassy-eyed. “You know who,” he said, not meanly. “God, don’t know who you think you’re kidding."

The warmth was lifting out of Hajime’s skin rapidly, the way it did when he got out of the shower damp and the air conditioning hit him. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you don’t."

Hajime stood up. He took the chip bag with him and crumpled it in his fist. “I’m going now,” he said robotically. “You should wash up and get some sleep."

“Whatever,” Makki said.

They hadn’t talked since.

After breakfast with Oikawa that day Hajime went grocery shopping. He never needed to make lists these days, just knew off the top of his head the ingredients that he and Oikawa relied on. Rice, if they were out. Fish. Fruit, lots of green apples, the ones Oikawa liked. Vegetables for soup and curry.

Hajime hefted his basket in the crook of his elbow and stood in the produce section examining a bell pepper in the light. They had painted some in the still-lifes at the very beginning of Intro to Painting, and he had hated them then, waxy-skinned and so shiny they looked fake. Who knew, maybe they had been. He couldn't imagine his professor shopping for fresh produce before every class.

He added the pepper to the basket, reconsidered, and then replaced it on the stand.

In the line to check out he sent Hirano a text.

_hey i’ll take the figure drawing class with you_

He got a reply a slim minute later.

_:)_

They were back on good terms now, he and Hirano. The day after their painting session on the fine arts patio Hajime had offered an apology. They hadn't painted together outside of class since then, but then again they were both terribly busy.

He supposed he needed to patch things up with Makki too.

Who had he become? Someone whose friendships always needed repairing.

“Are you ready to check out?” asked the cashier. She snapped her gum and stared him down in a bored sort of way.

“Oh,” said Hajime. “Yeah, sorry."

  
  


•

  
  


In the end it was Makki who reached out first. He texted asking if Hajime wanted to study together for finals, and even though they didn’t share any classes, it was nice to have some quiet companionship in the library.

Hajime always got distracted and wound up sketching while he studied. This time a portrait of Makki, lips pressed together in concentration as he stared at his textbook, sprawled across a page of Hajime’s notebook.

Makki laughed when he saw it. “That’s good,” he said.

“Here, take it,” said Hajime, already tearing at the perforation.

“No.” Makki put up both his hands in front of himself. “Keep it, for the memories. Since you never take photos and all."

The girl at the table next to them glared over darkly and they quieted.

It was true. Hajime found photos overly sentimental and forced. When he got home that day he hung up the sketch of Makki on the wall over his desk, next to the remaining few paintings of Oikawa he hadn’t taken down when Makki had visited that day in the rain. They were just as good as photos, in the sense of memory-holding.

The one photo he kept in his room was from a couple of weekends ago.

Campus had seen a light snowfall, uncharacteristically late in the year when it was already growing warm. He and Oikawa had gotten out of bed to fling snow at each other outside. It was barely eight in the morning. The little courtyard in the middle of their complex was quiet and blanketed in white, almost unearthly.

Oikawa threw a handful of slush—it wasn’t dry enough to stick together—at Hajime’s head, which he ducked. “Iwa-chan,” he coaxed. “Come over here so I can hit you properly."

“No can do,” said Hajime, and dodged the next attack by pivoting behind a tree and pressing his back to it. He stooped very slowly and scooped up a handful of the snow, his ungloved hand stinging. They had run out so fast earlier that he hadn’t bothered with anything beyond a jacket. Something about college and unexpected snow days made him a child again.

“Oikawa,” he called. Slid up the tree to stand again, the bark catching on his jacket. “I know you’re out there…"

“Am I?” said Oikawa’s voice, very close, and Hajime whipped his head around to a split-second view of Oikawa's grin before the wet snow hit him full in the face.

When he had wiped it off he stood blinking through the crystals in his lashes and stared in disgust at Oikawa. He was laughing hard, his brown eyes filled with light reflecting off the snow.

The disgust faded. Hajime thought of his paints without meaning to, felt the familiar tug in his gut.

A flash went off.

Oikawa stopped laughing and narrowed his eyes. “—What?"

“Sorry,” chirped a girl in a gray coat a few feet away, hiding behind a professional-looking camera. "Should’ve asked first! Is it alright if I use that photo? I’m from the Daily. We’re doing a story on the late-winter weather."

“Slow news day?” Oikawa asked with amusement.

Hajime stepped forward and casually onto the edge of Oikawa’s shoe. No need to be rude about it, even if she hadn’t asked their permission. “You can use the photo if you give us a copy,” he said.

Oikawa looked at him questioningly. The girl beamed. “Oh, thank you, of course,” she said. “Just leave me your address."

So that was how the only photo Hajime had bothered with came about.

Oikawa had seen it above the desk when he’d walked in later that week to offer Hajime leftover takeout.

“Hey, cute,” he’d said, and then started complaining about how someone had spilled a drink on him in a lecture earlier. Hajime had expected more. _Don’t I look beautiful here_ , or _How sweet Iwa-chan you put up a photo of me._

Hajime supposed Oikawa couldn't get it. That pang of seeing something that made your hands itch for paper and pencil, and of knowing it would pass too quickly for you to save it. Photos were, if nothing else, a good substitute for that feeling.

  
  


•

  
  


The portraits of Makki and Oikawa kept him company as he increasingly spent more time at his desk, studying for finals.

He had biology on Thursday, and then math on Friday, and then chemistry and mechanics the following week.

Sometimes Hajime took a short break to work on assignments for his painting class. He supposed it was telling that his break from classes was actually just another class.

Oikawa came in as he was doing anatomy studies for biology. During finals Hajime was secretly grateful for the regular interruptions from his roommate; he had just as much to study for as Hajime did, but he still somehow found the time to check in on him.

“Hey,” Hajime said, listening to the door creak.

Oikawa approached and leaned in over his shoulder until Hajime could smell something vaguely floral, maybe his shampoo. “Your skull is missing a chunk,” he observed. “At the base of the jaw."

“No, it’s not,” said Hajime, reaching up for Oikawa without looking. “If you go below the ear, follow the jaw…down a centimeter. See, a dent.”

Oikawa had gone still. “Your hand is cold,” he said.

Hajime removed it. “Go turn up the heat then."

Oikawa huffed off. When he returned Hajime had closed the sketchbook.

“Not drawing anymore?"

“No, don’t feel like it."

Oikawa sat down on the edge of Hajime’s bed, the springs creaking beneath him. His eyes traveled up to the wall.

“Is that—Makki?"

Hajime looked up too. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah. From studying the other day."

Oikawa’s lip curled. “Didn’t know you drew people other than me, Iwa-chan. I’m hurt."

“Oh, shut up.” Hajime sat forward and shoved the sketchbook under a pile of textbooks on his desk.

But Oikawa didn’t. “You never answered my question. Back in the fall, that day at the park."

Hajime’s stomach dropped. He busied himself with rearranging the stack of books, lining all the spines up flush with one another. “What question?"

"Do you draw anyone else as much as you draw me?"

He felt cornered and didn’t know who to blame. Was that a fair thing for Oikawa to ask? The evidence was all up on the walls anyway, or had been before he’d taken most of it down. Couldn’t Oikawa just make what he would of that?

“I don’t know,” he said, hot underneath his thin sweater. The heating must have kicked in already. “Probably not.”

He was scared to give the definitive answer, no, and have to see exactly what Oikawa’s reaction was to that.

But a look crossed Oikawa’s face and he merely sat back on his hands.

“Huh,” he said. “Have you eaten yet? Let’s get dinner."

Hajime thought he recognized something in the look.

He didn’t figure it out until they were at the ramen bar, halfway through their bowls. It gave him a glancing impression of something he hadn’t seen up close in a long while, since high school, since their days playing volleyball together. The look Oikawa got when he scored with one of those inhuman spike-like serves.

  
  


•

  
  


Mattsun’s university let off a full week before theirs did this year.

“This calls for a reunion,” Makki told Hajime over the phone.

Hajime had one more final left still. Chemistry was his worst subject. “When were you thinking?"

“I don’t know yet,” Makki said over the sound of chopping in the background. Hajime could picture him dicing vegetables by the sink, phone jammed between his shoulder and ear. It was good he had started cooking for himself again. “Maybe Friday? Friday evening? We could make dinner, all four of us."

“That sounds good,” said Hajime, relieved. His chemistry final was at noon on Friday. By dinnertime he could wash his hands of the school year.

Well, there was still his final portfolio.

He had all the pieces now. The only thing left to do was to choose between them and turn it in by the end of the week.

Now was as good a time as any, he guessed.

Hirano met up with him in his room, shouldering a flat black canvas bag that contained all his work. He laid it down carefully on the floor and sat next to it.

“Iwaizumi, where’s yours? Don’t tell me you’re just turning in a dozen portraits of Oikawa.” He gestured at the paintings on the wall.

“Ha, ha,” said Hajime. “I’ve got them right here."

He retrieved his own canvas bag from the closet. When he reemerged Hirano had taken out his works and begun spreading them across the floor.

Hajime knelt and they looked at them together.

“Semester sure has gone fast,” Hirano remarked. “I feel like I made some progress. Do you think?"

“You did,” Hajime agreed. “Are you excited for the figure drawing class?"

“You bet."

Hajime took out his own works and laid them out over the other half of the room. He stood precariously in the slivers of space between them to get a bird’s-eye view.

Hirano was chuckling. “These still-lifes,” he said, holding his up. “Remember them?"

“Oh, what, these?” Hajime bent down for his own. They looked at each other’s and grinned.

“I was so impressed with yours."

“You shouldn’t have been. Look at this."

“It’s still pretty good."

They exchanged looks. “The stupid waxy bell peppers,” Hajime said.

“So damn hard to draw," said Hirano.

They started to laugh. Hajime folded his still-life down the middle and tossed it into a corner of the room, and they laughed harder.

It was possible he was even more excited than Hirano was for their class next semester. After a full foundational painting course, he still gravitated toward people, the same thing as always. His walls showed it. The sketch of Makki. A painting he’d done of Hirano for their last assignment in class. Mostly they were paintings of Oikawa.

The day before, in between problem sets for math, he’d dug the rest of them out from the shoebox and finally put them back up again.

Maybe it was wrong, unprofessional, for an artist to fixate on a type of subject; maybe he should have been drawing bell peppers instead of people. But he wasn’t a professional. Hajime only painted things he liked.

  
  


•

  
  


Mattsun always looked exactly the same whenever he visited. He offered Hajime a one-armed hug as he walked in, the other arm holding up a paper box.

“Desserts,” he explained. “I thought I should bring something."

Oikawa was playing host, which Hajime was fine with because it meant he didn’t have to. “Desserts! You shouldn’t have, Mattsun,” he said, and took them from him to peer inside.

Makki was already there, producing a lot of steam and good smells in their kitchen. “Mattsun, c’mere,” he called. “Taste this and tell me if I haven’t gotten better at cooking."

Mattsun left Oikawa to the desserts and obliged. “Huh,” he said. “What do you know. You haven’t."

It was never the same as high school. They were inevitably different people now, more mature. None of them played volleyball except for Oikawa. But it was still familiar and felt something like home.

The very first time they had reconvened after starting university, it hadn’t gone well.

They had gone to a restaurant nearby over winter break. After all the _how’ve-you-been_ s and the reminiscing about high school, Mattsun had said, quite neutrally and in one breath, “So I got a job. It’s thirty minutes away, in Obanazawa, so I’m only going to be a part-time student next year. And Keiko and I are thinking about moving in together."

“Who’s Keiko?” asked Hajime and Oikawa together. Makki, who evidently knew at least who Keiko was but not about the rest, said coldly, “Jeez, thanks for letting us know so soon."

Before the main course had arrived Makki had left the restaurant in a huff. The remaining three of them tried to stay for as long as they could, though no one was hungry anymore. Oikawa asked for the food to go. It was one of Hajime’s least favorite memories of freshman year.

But they were a little older now and a lot better at keeping in touch.

After dinner, which was good despite Mattsun’s jab at Makki, Oikawa went to pick up some wine from the corner store. Hajime sat slouched down at the table, trying not to think about dishes.

Makki was rifling through the board games in the hall closet. “You and Oikawa are so boring,” he said. “There’s nothing good in here. Cards? You guys up for cards?"

“Actually,” said Hajime. He pushed himself up from the chair. “You two can play for now. I’m going to draw you, Mattsun."

Mattsun’s dark eyebrows lifted. “Oh, you’re still doing that?"

“Yeah."

“He’s good,” Makki said. “You should see the ones he does of Oikawa."

Hajime went into his room and took out his sketchpad and a pencil. Back in the living room, Makki and Mattsun had rearranged themselves on the floor, leaving a spot for him.

He sat cross-legged next to them. It was odd, really. That it had taken him so long to draw Makki that day at the library, and even longer to draw Mattsun now. He should have drawn them both much earlier.

“You’ll go up on my wall when it’s done,” he told Mattsun.

“Be a little creepier about it, why don’t you."

“No, everyone’s up there,” Hajime explained. “Oikawa. Makki. A couple of new friends."

“One,” said Makki. “It’s exactly one new friend."

Makki and Mattsun cracked up. Hajime smiled; he had missed them, not only individually, but as a pair. But he thought university and separation had been good for them, had mellowed them out a little.

He looked critically at Mattsun and angled himself until he saw him in near-profile, hunched over a fan of cards in his hand. He had a nice profile to draw. Strong brows, high bridge of the nose.

The other two played a round of gin rummy while Hajime sketched. Oikawa came back halfway through the second round with a paper bag, looking somewhat winded.

“Oh,” he said, setting the wine aside and folding up the bag. “Iwa-chan, you’re drawing Mattsun?"

“Come play,” said Makki. He patted the ground beside him. "I haven’t crushed you in cards in a while."

Oikawa bent and undid his shoelaces. “Eh,” he said. “I think I’ll pass this time."

Hajime was still mapping out the dark curls on Mattsun’s forehead. He stopped and looked up when Makki ghosted his forearm with a light touch.

“Damn it, Oikawa, you always get the shitty wine,” Makki said, but he was looking at Hajime. “C’mon Mattsun. We’re going to salvage this."

“Oh,” said Mattsun, confused, “okay—alright, we’re going."

Makki hustled the two of them out. They left their cards in a heap on the floor, and then Hajime could hear them talking briefly on the landing before their voices faded away. Oikawa was studiously replacing his shoes on the rack.

Hajime thought he knew what Makki was doing. He didn’t know if Oikawa knew. That made it marginally better.

“You good?” he asked.

“Hm?” Oikawa looked up, his hair falling in his face. It had gotten longer lately, needed cutting. “Yeah. What’s up?"

Hajime shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “I was wondering if you were okay with it."

“Okay with what?"

“My drawing other people."

Oikawa straightened and began to head to the kitchen with the wine. “Other people? Why wouldn’t I be okay with that?"

“Oh,” said Hajime. He got up and trailed behind Oikawa. “I thought…maybe you liked that I mostly drew you."

Now he had said it. Oikawa opened a cabinet and shut the wine inside. He rolled up his sleeves methodically. “Let’s do the dishes,” he suggested.

Hajime stared, caught off guard. He took the towel that Oikawa handed him and stood next to him as he ran the tap.

“I do like it,” Oikawa said evenly over the sound of the water. “I just don’t think it bothers me much anymore, when it’s otherwise."

Hajime hadn’t been sure that the conversation would continue, was relieved that it was going to. “So it used to bother you."

“Isn’t that what I just said?” Oikawa washed the suds off a plate and handed it to him. "Keep up, now."

Hajime dried it and set it on the counter.

“Okay,” he said. “So why did it bother you? And why not anymore?"

Oikawa ignored both questions; he was busily scrubbing at another plate. “You know,” he remarked, “I think you were bothered too. When other people drew me."

He meant that day with Hirano. He also wasn’t wrong, and had admitted first to disliking Hajime drawing other people.

“That’s right,” said Hajime, watching him rinse. “I was bothered."

“And now?"

He hadn’t thought about it since. “I don’t know,” he confessed.

Oikawa handed him the second plate, which he dried almost unconsciously. Would he still be bothered?

He hardly noticed that Oikawa was shutting off the tap, despite the fact that the sink was still full of unwashed dishes.

“I wish you wouldn’t dance around it so,” Oikawa said in the quiet that followed after the running water, and took the dish towel from Hajime to dry his own hands.

He had such a funny smile on his face that it scared Hajime a little.

In all their years of friendship he had developed a catalogue of looks from Oikawa: the flashy grins for his fans, the leers for his opponents across the net, the squint-eyed concentration when he was studying. He had never seen this smile before.

It was still there when Oikawa reached down and took ahold of his wrist.

He was watching Hajime’s face. He must have divined something from it, Hajime didn’t know what, because his hand slid lower and threaded their fingers together, and Hajime let him do it.

He tore his eyes away from the smile to look down at their hands, and understood then why Hirano liked drawing them so much. His own hand jerked instinctively as if to disentangle, reach for his paints; the old habit of wanting.

“You don’t have to draw it,” said Oikawa, amused, but when Hajime looked back up his eyes were soft. “It’s not going to disappear."

“Get out of my head."

Oikawa laughed and then sobered up when Hajime tightened his grip.

“I wish _you_ wouldn’t dance around it so,” he said. “All that _do you paint anyone as much as me_ bullshit."

“Me? Dance around it? I was being so obvious. I thought I couldn’t be any more obvious. I thought I would have to start writing those frilly locker notes, the kind I got in high school."

“I would’ve liked to see that."

Hajime had held hands with Oikawa once when they were kids. They had been walking back from club volleyball for the first time, and it was late, and when they came to cross the street before their houses Oikawa insisted they hold hands. “My mom always holds mine,” he had said. “It keeps you safe."

There was something necessarily different about holding hands with your best friend when you were both twenty, standing in your kitchen over the dishes you hadn’t done, and he was staring at you with that funny smile still on his face.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Do we let them in?” asked Hajime.

“Do we let them in like this,” corrected Oikawa, gesturing between them.

Hajime looked down again, not wanting to release Oikawa, not wanting to let Makki and Mattsun in on it so soon either.

He looked at Oikawa, who looked back calmly. He thought then that he knew what the smile meant. It was a smile that said he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Let’s not,” he said, “let’s not, just yet,” and he let go, and went to answer the door.

**Author's Note:**

> that is,, so romantic


End file.
